V: "Fruition"Review

This was another solid episode, as V seems to be on the right track – albeit still not feeling as "big" as we might hope at this point, considering the season finale is next week.

We finally got to see Erica and Anna -- our primary hero and villain -- meet here, though it wasn't quite the verbal or physical clash you might have imagined. However, that was understandable, as right now, both women are all about keeping up their guard and their pretenses – masking who they really are from one another. It's a fun dynamic actually, especially as Erica is deciding to play the manipulation game herself. Not that I don't want to eventually see Erica punch Anna in the face of course.

The physical abuse inflicted upon Lisa was definitely compelling stuff. Seeing her so battered and bruised (kudos to the makeup team), with a V carved into her cheek no less, was a memorable, evocative image, that helped make Anna even more of a nasty villain. The ease with which she could first do this to her own daughter and then also play the concerned mother in front of others, made every scene between the two filled with anxiety and you couldn't help but sympathize with Lisa. Laura Vandervoort was very good portraying Lisa's confused feelings of pain, betrayal, fear and lingering loyalty.

Though I have to note – it would have been nice if someone, anyone, mentioned how close in age Anna and Lisa appear. Sure, we know the real reason (the faces we are seeing aren't really their faces), but since others would be asking questions, it would be a lot more believable if we saw Anna have to explain this, saying the Vs age at a different rate than humans or such.

Anna's cold and efficient actions continue to be one of the best parts of the series. Everything she does in relation to the humans is done with manipulation in mind – from shutting Chad out, to having the Shanghai V ship depart the planet. That being said, I have to (again, I know) mention how tiny and ineffectual the Fifth Column seem by comparison. The more we see Anna work to stop them, the more I find myself thinking, "But they're just four people, who haven't really accomplished anything!" It's one of the show's biggest issues and if there's a second season, I hope something is done to remedy this quickly – it's one thing to have your underdogs heroes fighting against a juggernaut of an enemy, and it's another to feel like they really are just kind of gnats with little chance of succeeding. Step up, Fifth Column! And please, have a recruitment drive or something.

The end of the episode even calls into question whether they are four strong or down to three, as it turns out Hobbes has secretly been in communication with Anna's right hand man, Marcus, and is arranging to hand over a potential weapon -- a virus that can be used against reptiles -- in order to save himself. Hobbes has been one of the cooler characters and I hope he doesn't truly end up betraying the Fifth Column, simply because it would be a loss, storywise, to take him out of the mix.

I liked the short scene in this episode where Jack advised a disheartened Ryan, and told him his faith could help him fight off Anna's Bliss. We see Jack wearing the priest's collar, but he's usually in the midst of Fifth Column-related action, so it was nice to see him get to put his skills and beliefs to use with one of his allies.

Even though it will be damn satisfying to see Lisa finally turn against her evil mother, I'm glad it didn't happen yet – even though you could tell Lisa certainly came close to telling Erica the truth. But the little looks between Lisa and Joshua are reinforcing her doubt in everything going on. Meanwhile, as I noted above, by the end of the episode, Erica had decided to fight fire with fire – deciding to use Tyler's relationship with Lisa to get closer to Lisa and Anna. Up until now, almost every aspect of Tyler's storyline, including Erica continually not telling him the truth, has been incredibly frustrating. Having Erica now using Tyler's ties to the Vs for her own end (rather than giving him more vague, cryptic warnings to stay away from them) is a much more interesting story – especially because it's far more morally questionable, since Erica is potentially putting her son in grave danger in a more notable way, by allowing him to stay so close to the Vs, even as she learns even more about how horrible Anna is. So yay, moral ambiguity! And yay, Tyler in danger!